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Why We Can’t Quit

Isn't it weird how cigarette manufacturers now have to actively dissuade people from buying their product? Can we smokers tell you militant anti-smoking nutjobs something? Most of us started smoking because it seemed cool. It seemed cool because it signified … Read More

Isn't it weird how cigarette manufacturers now have to actively dissuade people from buying their product?

Can we smokers tell you militant anti-smoking nutjobs something? Most of us started smoking because it seemed cool. It seemed cool because it signified (in our youthful minds) a rebellion against the nanny culture of fear, and the conservative tendency to avoid sensual pleasures and all manner of vice. We knew better than to buy into that joyless way of life, so we started smoking to say 'Fuck you,' and then we eventually discovered that it can be quite pleasurable. Maybe even too pleasurable. Now you've gone and made it nearly criminal and in the process you've upped the wee fag's currency as a social signifier of revolt.

Quitting really would make a great deal of sense–especially for those of us who aren't enticed anymore by the rock and roll martyr ethos of living fast and dying young. Some of us have discovered how fun it is to live fast and noticed the 'die young,' part of the equation is a logical error. But you make it nearly impossible. For every year we grow both wiser and closer to cancer/emphysema/heart disease, you guys up the ante with your imposing, obnoxious, health bullying and it just makes us want to light up. With every new smoking ban in every new town, we hate you more.

Just because none of us wants to die any time soon doesn't mean that we care to spend every last ounce of energy avoiding it and forcing others to take the same measures. When you force people to make commercials like the one below for a legal product, it makes us wish there was a way to hotbox every last one of you so that you'd choke on your own rancorous paternalism.